Epic Believes Next Gen Consoles will be “Substantial Leap”

There has been a lot of discussion about whether the next generation of consoles will be the substantial leap that we say between the PS2 to the PS3. But the consensus seems to be that most people are skeptical that the next generation of consoles will be a substantial leap in technology that we have seen in past consoles. However, Epic founder Tim Sweeney believes that the next generation of consoles will be a “substantial leap” in technology over what we have today.

Sweeney went on to say that what they are doing with high-end PC’s will be indicative of what the next generation of consoles are capable of. But when the next generation of consoles shows up, that we should actually expect a “substantial leap” over what we are currently playing.

Then talk shifted to Unreal Engine 4, which Sweeney said will change the industry for the better. According to Sweeney, the Unreal Engine 4 will allow developers to create games more easily and cheaply than before. The engine will improves “art production, content creation, iteration between programmers and artists.” Apparently, one art designer can create a game by himself with the engine in six months, and with digital distribution has a chance to lower costs even more.

Hopefully the Unreal Engine 4 will live up to the hype and help lower development costs, which right now is the biggest problem in the video game industry. Lowering development costs would help save a lot of developers from going out of business and help improve innovation in the industry; so to say I am hopeful that the Unreal Engine 4 can actually help lower developer costs would be an understatement.